Montcalm and Wolfe eBook

“When Mr. Vanbraam returned with the French
proposals, we were obliged to take the sense of them
from his mouth; it rained so heavy that he could not
give us a written translation of them; we could scarcely
keep the candle lighted to read them by; they were
written in a bad hand, on wet and blotted paper, so
that no person could read them but Vanbraam, who had
heard them from the mouth of the French officer.
Every officer there is ready to declare that there
was no such word as assassination mentioned.
The terms expressed were, the death of Jumonville.
If it had been mentioned we would by all means have
had it altered, as the French, during the course of
the interview, seemed very condescending, and desirous
to bring things to an issue.” He then gives
several other points in which Vanbraam had misled them.

Dinwiddie, recounting the affair to Lord Albemarle,
says that Washington, being ignorant of French, was
deceived by the interpreter, who, through poltroonery,
suppressed the word assassination.

Captain Mackay, writing to Washington in September,
after a visit to Philadelphia, says: “I
had several disputes about our capitulation; but I
satisfied every person that mentioned the subject
as to the articles in question, that they were owing
to a bad interpreter, and contrary to the translation
made to us when we signed them.”

At the next meeting of the burgesses they passed a
vote of thanks for gallant conduct to Washington and
all his officers by name, except Vanbraam and the
major of the regiment, the latter being charged with
cowardice, and the former with treacherous misinterpretation
of the articles.

Sometime after, Washington wrote to a correspondent
who had questioned him on the subject: “That
we were wilfully or ignorantly deceived by our interpreter
in regard to the word assassination I do aver,
and will to my dying moment; so will every officer
that was present. The interpreter was a Dutchman
little acquainted with the English tongue, therefore
might not advert to the tone and meaning of the word
in English; but, whatever his motives for so doing,
certain it is that he called it the death or
the loss of the Sieur Jumonville. So we
received and so we understood it, until, to our great
surprise and mortification, we found it otherwise in
a literal translation.” Sparks, Writings
of Washington, II. 464, 465.

Appendix D

Chapter 7. Braddock

It has been said that Beaujeu, and not Contrecoeur,
commanded at Fort Duquesne at the time of Braddock’s
expedition. Some contemporaries, and notably
the chaplain of the fort, do, in fact, speak of him
as in this position; but their evidence is overborne
by more numerous and conclusive authorities, among
them Vaudreuil, governor of Canada, and Contrecoeur
himself, in an official report. Vaudreuil says
of him: “Ce commandant s’occupa le